90S Communication

Important corollaries:

• Applies to conversation between peers or stranger of unknown status.
• Community arises from small-yet-frequent positive acknowledgement of everyone we meet!
• The semblance of agreeabilty masks true intent and agenda for the sake of social convenience and comfort.
• In either case, familiarity then trust develops with each agreeable interaction, which creates opportunities for further bonding!

The Hypothesis

In practical terms, a majority of people seem to be naturally sensitive to sentiment and agreeability as the foundation of social harmony. Social harmony creates psycological safety, which is important for people to function at their best. When social harmony is disrupted too many times, this is perceived as a threat to that psychological safety, and good will is lost.

Neurodivergent people like myself have a different notion of social harmony. For many of us, sharing what we think and sharing our data is the basis of social harmony; there is an automatic assumption of good will, and directness is appreciated because "it's just data" and we are comfortable with questions and uncertainty.

The conclusion I have drawn is that each group has a different priority and purpose for communication:

• For the "majority", the norm is the expression of positive sentiment and obvious agreeability to maintain social harmony in the group, as one's social safety is determined by this.
• For "people like me", the norm is sharing personal experience and data and negotiating understanding, which creates social harmony in individual pairings or small groups.

When these norms are violated in either group, negative reactions start to build. When violation is repeatedly experiencesd, the fight-flight-freeze-fawnSee this WebMD article for a primer on the four stress responses. stress response is triggered!

Developing 90S

I think a reasonable baseline for communication is to (1) enhance shared positive sentiment and (2) avoid triggering fight-flight-freeze-fawn response. This leans in favor with the so-called "majority norms" I hypothesized above, but it is a strategem that is good for EVERYONE including neurodivergent people! But how does that work in practice?

In my journaling I'm using the tag 90S---short for 90% Sentiment, 10% Data---to describe the mindful practice of conscientiousness, politeness, and affirmation in casual conversion between peersI can not emphasize enough that 90S is for casual peers and corworkers of the same status. The rules change in other relationships, or break when the perception of "peer" is not shared., such as coworkers, acquaintances, and people who meet on the street who are not obviously an authority figure. 0S is a conversation mode that emphasizes social harmony as commonly expected by the majority.

For starters, the easiest way for me to remember all the above is:

In practical terms, this means that in the majority of casual conversations, what you are saying is secondary to expressing positive sentiment. Your words are just the vehicle to deliver the sentiment.

This helps me remember two important conversational reminders:

• Most people aren't interested in what I am actually thinking about. They just want to express positivity at seeing you. The words themselves don't have meaning beyond conveying positive feeling, and I should just reply in kind as part of the ritual.
• When people ask questions in a casual context, they are NOT expecting a high-intensity or challenging conversation. It is perfectly acceptible to just give a light overview, letting the other person ask more questions if they like but keeping the responses small.

My natural communication style is to lead with data and my lived experience, because I used to think other people would happily take what I offered and exchange their own data/experience back. This is not the way it works in casual conversation between acquaintances.

Getting deeper into it, I think of 90S as emphasizing the communication of sentiment as part of active listening. However, active listening is different from people who are primarily 90S communicators. In this context, active listening is affirming that you hear what was said and show support.

In the context of people with my flavor of neurodivergence, active listening is sharing relevant data and similar experiences to show that you understand what the other person is feeling as a show of affirmation. The subtext is, "what you are saying is something I also have known, and we are in solidarity". However, this can be perceived as being self-centered or attention-stealing; the expectation from 90S converation again is sentiment, not data. It is important to affirm what is being said on a personal level.

In 90S practice, it's acceptible to agree to an invitation with no intention to follow-through on it. This serves the sentiment-first expectation by

1. conveying positive sentiment to the invitation because it's genuine in that moment.
2. assuming that outside of the conversation, the invitation is not a promise but is instead a suggestion

The overriding concern in 90S is that everyone can show their agreeableness in-person and not be held accountable. It's assumed that the initial invitation might be being made for politeness. Only after trust and familiarity grows does an invitation turn into a commitment. This is a surprising realzation for neurodivergent folks who believe every statement is true and containing specific meaning.

90S is the foundation for small talk, casual conversations, and social events. It allows everyone to present a face of being a positive, socially virile individual among their peer group. Over time, trust grows and the small bits of information comfortably share with each other grows into a significant shared context. At this point, it's possible to present more challenging ideas to each other because consistent safety has been established. This is a whole other topic in itself.

• For non-peer conversations, 90S native practitioners then follow the authority/power structure and optimize for survival then safety. This changes the way 90S is applied for political positioning and power, not necessarily to find friendship. The additional stress can make it even more difficult to cope as a neurodivergent individual.
• In business or work contexts, collective problem solving shifts the emphasis more toward data but still demands all the 90S agreeableness and affirmations according to the culture. Business-speak, engineering-speak, and executive-speak still use 90S conventions between peers. The problem arises between non-peers due to cross-domain differences in how they see the world.

The majority of people process the world by recognizing a problem context, then applying the method they've learned to deal with it. They especially value proven solutions that they have used in the past, or are recommended by someone who has a high sentiment value for them. Finding new solutions require effort, which is not always welcome when the solution is being forced on them. Conversations that are easy to answer without incurring a demand are easiest to have (e.g. small talk), as they convey the all-important positive sentiment that is the primary purpose of communication in 90S. It doesn't matter if there is no actual data or insight conveyed; that is a tertiary concern after showing face-to-face agreeableness and affirmation.

90S does not suit the needs of neurodivergent people with strong special interests or other high-intensity/high-bandwidth conversational styles. Likewise, 90S is a poor fit for communicators who feel the need to prioritize efficient data communication, the socratic method, or collaborative critical thinking. These conversations require synthesizing new thoughts rather than responses. That said, 90S is still useful to use as a communication strategy for introducing ideas to a general audience. It's helpful to think of it as a adaptation of one's natural way of thinking/conversing in non-90S context. As mentioned above, it's good for everyone! Even if the general audience does have peers that have non-90S cognitive architectures, they all understand it and appreciation the affirmation/positivity so long as the additionally expected rigor in thinking is available.

Being positive, agreeable, and actively affirming of the others is nice, and being nice usually doesn't hurt. You can still establish your boundaries and express your opinions; you just need to do it in a way that doesn't make the other feel diminished. The best way to do that is to show you're listening and hearing what they're saying. You can offer suggestions, opportunities to work on something, volunteer help, and so forth to show that you're willing to engage beyond the surface agreeability of 90S, but this should never be demanded. Likewise, with high-intensity communication, 90S is the framework through which you can test whether the other party is amenable to it. There are multiple strategies for doing this without making them feel pressured or challenged.

References

• The 06/06/2025 GHDR Report Learning to Talk like a Human describe the genesis of the term "90S".
• The 07/07/2025 GHDR Report Affirming Communication describes how 90S